


The one with the life-threatening meet-cute

by JanuaryCafe



Series: It's Classified [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryCafe/pseuds/JanuaryCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Steve and Danny end up dating, Steve is a Navy SEAL and Danny is a pretend cop who really works for the CIA.</p><p>This is how they met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The one with the life-threatening meet-cute

**Author's Note:**

> I'm intending to write more in this 'verse. Mostly domestic. Maybe some work stuff (I mean, Danny's CIA. That's fun, right?).
> 
> Also, this is TV CIA. It's not supposed to be like the actual CIA. :)

They met at a corner drug store. Or rather, they met during an attempted robbery while they were both shopping at _The Pineapple Palace_ , a shop that sold no fruit of any kind. A kid in a hoodie with short blond hair pulled a gun out and pointed it at the cashier, hand shaking and voice cracking with a combination of puberty and nerves. Steve and Danny had snapped to attention at the same time.

The only other customers at the time were a young man and his little boy by the candy section, and an older gentleman near the milk at the back of the store. Steve made a motion to Danny to hang back, but Danny subtly shook his head and slowly angled himself, drawing back his coat so Steve could see his detective badge on his belt. With a curt nod, Steve began slowly moving forward. After unsuccessfully trying to get him to back down, Danny decided to take action of his own.

He took half a step forward and schooled his features into something he hoped was soft, and used the voice that worked on Gracie when she had had a nightmare. “Hey, is everything okay?”

The kid with the gun whipped around and stared wildly at Danny. “Shut up! Get on the floor. Everyone! Get down now or I’ll shoot you all. I will. I’ll do it!” His fingers shook on the trigger, the gun still pointed at the frightened clerk.

Danny held up his hands. “I would, I swear, but I have a knee injury and it just won’t bend that way.” Danny shrugged apologetically. He could no longer see Steve in his peripheral.

The kid’s breathing sped up. “Look man, you need to get down or you’ll wind up breathing through a tube, got it?” The gun swung slightly away from the clerk, the kid’s attention shifting toward Danny.

“Sure,  okay. But like I said, I really can’t. I tore my ACL a while back and it’s not healed yet. There were complications with the surgery, I had to get physical therapy, and it’s still not at a hundred percent. Otherwise, I’d like to help you out.” Danny kept his hands up, his posture soft and as non-threatening as he could manage. He was broad for his height, but he was also short, and relative to most other guys he was not that big. He could do non-threatening. “You want to tell me what you need here? I can help. I’m good with people. I’m a daycare worker. I like to help people out.”

“I…I just…” The kid swallowed hard and wiped his free hand over his sweating forehead. “I need the register open. This is a robbery, and either _he_ —” he swung back to the clerk and shook the gun at him, making the clerk flinch, “gives me everything in the store or we all go down.”

“Sir, please,” the clerk says, his voice a wheeze, “I can’t. We only keep a little in the register. Only like fifty bucks. The owner…she has us keep the rest in a safe. I can’t open it. Only she can.”

“You’re lying to me! Open the register and the damn safe!”

“Hey, hey,” Danny said, taking another step forward, “Let’s hold on. Sir, please open the register for us? Thanks, that’s it.” Danny turned back to the kid. “And if he’s telling the truth, which I think he is because there’s not any reason to lie to you right now, you’ll get that money and we’ll all just wait here until you’re clear, okay? None of us care about the money. It’s yours. All we want is to get you what you want, all right?”

The kid hesitated. After a moment, he wiped away the sweat on his upper lip and nodded, jerky and uncoordinated as he tried to calm down, not meeting Danny’s eyes. The kid hadn't thought it through all the way, Danny knew, and he was starting to have second thoughts. The clerk quickly pulled out all the cash in the register. The kid snatched it and counted it. “This is only thirty bucks!” He aimed the gun at the clerk and his finger tightened on the trigger.

“Freeze!”

Danny watched as Steve, then known to him only as tall dark and crazy stranger, leaped out from behind a shelf of sugar cereals and Twinkies with a gun leveled at the robber. The  kid jumped violently at his movement and turned to face him. The gun slipped in his hand and went off. Danny felt a white pain and bad pressure dig deep in his arm. He inhaled sharply and stumbled back. The next few seconds were a flurry of motion as Steve jumped the kid and send the gun flying away from him, and in a moment the kid was incapacitated on the floor with his hands behind his back and Steve’s knee in his spine, face shoved into the dirt-smeared linoleum floor.

“Sir, call 911,” Steve directed, speaking to the man with his son. The man nodded and fumbled to get his phone out.

“Mother of god, that hurts,” Danny bit out, cupping a hand over the wound in his arm, trying not to touch it too much.

“Sir, are you all right?” Steve asked Danny. The kid below him squirmed in vain toward freedom and Steve punched him in the kidney.

Danny leveled a glare at him. “No, I am not all right. I have been shot. In no universe does that constitute being all right.” He peeked at his wound, which was bleeding and ruining the shirt that Grace had given him for his last birthday. It was a graze, but it was deep and it hurt like hell. “I had everything under control. We were having a nice conversation here before you went all Rambo on our asses. Did you not see me _wave my badge_ at you? I’m a cop, you lunatic. You should have let me handle this.”

Steve frowned. “All you did was talk. He was going to shoot someone.”

Trying and failing to swallow his outrage, Danny snapped, “He _did_ shoot someone. Me, he shot me. And now I’m bleeding on Gracie’s shirt, which was my favorite by the way, all so you could play hero.”

“I’m a Navy SEAL.”

“Oh, well, then it's all okay. Because you guys routinely handle punks knocking over corner stores, right? No? Well then who does have experience with that? Cops you say? Good idea. Next time, let the guy with experience with this stuff do the talking, okay pal?”

Steve shrugged. “It didn't look like your talking was helping. And I’m in kind of a hurry, so I figured I’d speed things up.”

He was going to have an aneurysm. Danny could feel it coming. He wanted to throw something at the idiot’s smug face, like the large jawbreaker candy near the shelf by his newly-shot arm, but he suspected the sudden movement would hurt more.

“God. Why couldn’t I have lost consciousness? Why wasn’t I spared this?” As Danny questioned an unidentified deity about his bad luck, the sound of sirens could be heard approaching from down the street.

Danny glanced down at the kid beneath the giant Navy SEAL. He exhaled. “Here,” he held out a pair of handcuffs that he fished out from the holder on his belt, “tie him up. He looks squirrelly. He’s not going anywhere, but he seems stupid enough to try, so.”

“Thanks.” Steve took the cuffs and snapped them around the kid’s wrists.

“Now you,” Danny directed at the kid, “Can you see how this was not worth all the crap we went through? I got shot, you got a 200 lb man landing on you, and now you’re going to jail. Thirty bucks is not worth this. Do you understand me?”

The door burst open and three police officers rushed in. Steve stood up and yanked the kid after him, shoving him into the hands of the cops. While they worked, Danny glanced around at the other customers. The father and his son looked shaken but okay, and the older man in the back of the store had returned to browsing the milk section, selecting a chocolate variety after a moment of deliberation. The man turned and noticed Danny looking at him. He smiled and ambled toward him on his way to the register. He patted Danny on his uninjured shoulder as he passed and made his way to the register to pay for his milk.

Danny blinked. His arm throbbed. He scowled down at it and trudged toward the exit. Now he had to go to the hospital and waste time getting stitches. The wound looked deep enough to warrant a few. He walked out to his car only to see that he was blocked in by the jerk off who had tried to rob the place. He swore loudly and kicked the junker’s back tire.

“Hey.”

Danny closed his eyes and prayed that he was wrong. The blue eyes and the tattoos in his line of sight a second later told him he was not. “Can I help you?”

“Looks like you need a ride.” The guy grinned.

Danny frowned. “Look, GI Joe, I don’t—”

“I’m in the Navy, not the Army. And it’s Steve.”

Danny waved him off. “Right, sure, Steve. Look, Steve, you’ve done enough. I just want to get to a hospital and then go home.”

Steve looked at Danny’s car pointedly. “You’re blocked in.”

“Brilliant deduction. Really spectacular. You must be a very good soldier.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“No.”

“You need a doctor.”

“I wouldn't if you’d just let me handle things.”

“You should have stayed back.”

“I…? No, _no_ , I am the cop here. You are a crazy person who escaped from his battle tank or the trenches or something and needs to be reappropriated by his Army squad.”

“Navy. _Navy_ , not Army.”

“I don’t care.”

“You need medical attention. I have a car. Let me give you a lift.”

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “Buddy, I’m not totally sure you’re not a psycho who goes around kidnapping people and hacking them to bits. I also don’t like you. So no, I don’t think so.”

“Well, then you’ll have to wait for them to tow this guy’s car out of the way.” Steve crossed his arms like he thought he'd made a convincing closing argument.

Danny considered that. He thought about calling Matt, but he knew Mattie was at home with Grace and he didn’t want his brother to have to bring Gracie over to see her uncle Danno bleeding from his arm. He considered calling his superior officer, but didn't want to have to fill out the sixty forms the CIA would require if he used their help to get him out of a non-emergency situation. Too bad his stint as a cop was a cover job - he could have had a real partner and everything to come pick him up. And unfortunately his move to Hawaii was too new to have anyone he knew well enough to come pick him up with a gunshot wound. He looked back up at Steve, who was watching him with enough stoicism to kill a cat. Danny swore again and nodded. “Fine, but I drive.”

“No you won't. Get in.” Steve lifted a key fob and unlocked a truck that was parked two spaces down from Danny’s car. Danny got in.

* * *

 

“You know, it’s polite to give your name when someone tells you theirs,” Steve said on the drive over.

“Is it?” Danny asked, leaning back in his seat, “Well, it’s also polite to _apologize_ when you get someone shot. And yet that hasn’t happened tonight.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“It was. It really and truly was your fault.” Danny watched for the turn for the hospital.

“If you’d just—”

“Nope. I’m the cop, it was my job, you had to try and be a superhero, and I got a bullet for it. You should apologize. Either that or let’s just sit in silence for a while, okay? Okay.”

Steve was quiet for several minutes. Then, “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean for you to get shot.”

Danny nodded. “Noted.”

Steve waited, then, “So, is my apology accepted?”

“We’ll get back to you in six to ten business days.”

Steve snorted. Danny ignored him. Twenty second later, “Are you going to tell me your name now? You know mine.”

“I didn’t want to know yours. You gave me no choice. It was forced on me.”

“Well, I’m asking. I like to know the names of guys who I accidentally get shot.” He gave a smile that was cheeky enough to make Danny scowl.

“It’s Danny. Can we drop it now?”

“And you’re a cop?”

“That’s what the badge means.”

“A detective?”

“Yes.”

“Detective who?”

“I’m Danny. Did we not cover this? I’m pretty sure the minutes of our last meeting will reflect that.”

“Detective Danny what?”

“Williams. And you’re super SEAL Steve.”

“McGarrett. I’m on shore leave visiting my sister.”

“Too much information, Navy. I make it a point to not buddy up with guys who get me shot. Oy, hey, there’s the turn for the hospital. You’ll miss it.”

Steve glided across six lanes without a single honk and got off on the correct exit.

Two hours later Danny was admitted to a curtained-off cubicle and given six stitches, which in retelling the story would be expanded to somewhere around twenty. When he got out Steve was still there, sitting in a seat much too short for him, and with a two year old magazine open in his lap. He watched Steve flip through it listlessly for a minute before walking forward. Upon noticing Danny, Steve ditched the magazine and hurried toward him. 

"Hey, you okay? What did they say?"

Danny shrugged. "Stitched me up, told me to stay away from unbalanced SEALs for at least two months, and gave me a brochure on how not to get my stitches infected." He shifted folded said brochure and stuck it in his back pocket. "You didn't have to stick around." 

"I don't mind. I got the feeling you were a bit pissed about getting shot, so I figured it'd go a long way toward my apology if I gave you a lift home, too." He smiled.

Danny ignored the sarcasm for the moment. His automatic instinct was to not let Steve know where he lived. But while waiting for the doctor, a quick call to Jenkins at the CIA had confirmed that Steve was indeed a Navy SEAL on leave. There was no threat, Danny reminded himself. "Sure. I'd appreciate that." 

Steve took Danny's jacket from him and lead him out to the car. Danny studiously ignored the hand Steve put on his lower back to guide him into the truck without any accidental contact between the new stitches and anything else. It wasn't a long drive to Danny's little rented house. It also wasn't more than a minute into that drive that Steve cleared his throat in a meaningful way.

"So. There's, ah, no one at home you need to call? You know, to let them know what happened?"

Danny shook his head. "No. I live alone. Or else I wouldn't have had to rely on a stranger." He waved a hand in Steve's direction.

"Right." And a minute later, "So, who's Gracie? You said that's her shirt. A gift?"

"For my birthday, yeah." Danny glanced down at the blood stain and hole in the arm of it. "I'll have to tell her I lost it." He waited a moment, watching Steve get a bit twitchy out of the corner of his eye. "This isn't the kind of thing you explain to a six-year old."

The twitchy energy drained out of Steve at the mention of Grace's age. "My dad's a cop," he said, "Trust me, she'll probably figure some of it out. She'll be okay; you're okay."

"Maybe. I'm not sure her dad would love me telling her that story."

"Is she your kid?"

"Not technically. She's my niece. I've helped raise her since she was born, though."

Steve's reply was cut short as Danny pointed out the driveway that ran up to his home. Steve turned onto the drive and pulled close to the house. He killed the engine. "You live here permanently then? On the island?"

"Yeah. Since two months ago."

"Oh." Steve twisted in his seat until he faced Danny. "We should get coffee."

Danny paused with his hand on the door handle. "Coffee?"

"Yeah. Or dinner."

"Are you nuts? Is there actually something wrong with you? We got shot at tonight, I got stitches, and you're mostly responsible for all of it." Despite an effort, Danny couldn't make his complaints sound as sharp or final as he meant them to.

Steve appeared to consider that for a moment. "I think getting shot at is something that happens to both of us in our professions. You don't seem too shaken up by it, and I know I'm not." He ignored Danny's indignant noise. "And I have a hard time believing that you'd have spent half the evening with me if you disliked me as much as you say you do. I think we should go out."

Danny started to prepare an argument, assembled a list of reasons they shouldn't go out and reasons he didn't want to go out with Steve. None of them stuck for long in the face of Steve's nervous yet somehow confident gaze. Instead, he said, "Fuck it. Sure. Tomorrow?" He realized a second too late that the request for a date in less than twenty-four hours of his own shooting make him seem more eager than he'd like Steve to think he is. Steve grinned at him, the nerves disappearing (the confidence was still there, out in full force).

"Sure. Three o'clock? I'll pick you up."

Danny would have to inform the appropriate people at work tomorrow about his injuries. That would take time. "Five o'clock. How about the Chinese place across from the corner store? I was thinking about picking up food from there before I got shot. It looks good."

Steve's grin widened. "Dinner sounds great."

"I'll meet you there. Not that I don't trust your crazy driving, it's just that I'd rather not be in a car crash the day after I get a bullet wound. You understand."

Steve agreed. Danny nodded and climbed out of the truck. He heard Steve's door open and close, and Steve came up and strolled beside him as Danny made his way up the front walk. At the door, Danny hesitated when he got his key out of his wallet. "You said in the store that you were in a hurry. For what?" He felt a twinge of guilt, thinking that he may have gotten in the way of something important - the feeling was quickly quashed when he remember why he had needed Steve's assistance at all.

"Nothing that can't wait. I was on my way to meet a friend. She'll understand." Despite trying not to, Danny must have shown some of his hesitation at Steve's information. "We're not together, not like that. It's not - I don't have anyone like that."

"Right. Yeah, I hope not." He frowned at Steve's smug smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Steve said. He turned and walked away, giving a last wave before he got into his car.

Danny let himself inside and locked the door behind him, not moving away from it until he heard Steve's truck disappear down the street. Danny moved into the small living room and dropped down onto the couch. He exhaled and pulled out his cell phone. If he started explaining himself to his superior now, maybe he'd be done in time to get some sleep before his dinner with Steve. He dialed, and as the phone rang, he briefly considered that he was indeed crazy for asking Steve to dinner. The thought was pushed aside as someone answered on the other line. Steve couldn't be that nuts - no worse certainly than an undercover CIA agent living in Hawaii, having followed his niece there to help raise her, hiding his real job from everyone he knew. After all, crazy was all relative.


End file.
